MIT Plasma Center

Nuclear Fusion will hopefully one day be a means of producing energy for the world to use. Basically, hydrogen nuclei are fused together. The mass of the newly formed nuclei is less than the sum of the total hydrogen nuclei. This excess mass is released as energy. The process is infinitely more complicated than that, but for the purposes of this blog, it will do. Hydrogen atoms have a positive charge, so forcing them to fuse is incredibly hard since they repel each other. In order to fuse them you need to create the right conditions. One of those conditions is very high temperatures. It is hard to describe or explain how hot the hydrogen needs to be. It is about 6 times hotter than the core of the sun. Hydrogen is no longer a gas at these high temperatures. It becomes a plasma. A plasma is a state of matter when the electrons no longer orbit/affect the atoms. They will have more energy to fuse than the electrical repulsion of their charge.

This is where the research at MIT comes into play. We visited the Plasma Science and Fusion Center at MIT. They study the science used to create those extreme conditions – microwaves, lasers, and ion particles. The team at MIT uses microwaves to heat the plasma. To contain it, they use a toroidal nuclear fusion reactor that suspends the plasma in a magnetic field. The experimental nuclear fusion reactor used at MIT is the Alcator C-Mod.

There is much more science involved than simply building bigger or more powerful microwaves. They design ways to measure the temperature of the plasma by analyzing the change in infrared lights, for example. They also developed bolts strong enough to prevent a spaceship from taking off. That takes two bolts, the reactor takes 86. So how is this specific research relevant in the greater quest for Nuclear Fusion (And therefore worth investment)? The technology that they test and develop is shared with the scientific community through different outlets (publications, seminars) and therefore directly contributes to the effort. The ITER Nuclear Fusion Reactor, the culmination of the international effort, is a project being funded by 33 countries. ITER is currently in the production stage in France. The ITER Reactor will hopefully be the first project to achieve this revolutionary milestone. The Research done at places like MIT, which directly contribute to that global goal, is therefore incredibly relevant and significant. In my opinion, this research is well worth investment.